2008 Ford Crown Victoria Window Switches

Crown Victorias are usually pretty beefy cars.  Part of the reason is that they are simple.  What cars tend to be maintenance nightmares?  Cars that are "complicated".

One part that seems to have issues on the later cars are the window switches.

Vic 3.0's driver's window switch started to act strange not long after I took the car over.  I'd have to "finesse" the switch to get the window to go up, but not all the time.  It got worse and worse, and I started thinking I better start looking for a used set of switches.   

Of course, what happened?  It stopped working... with the window OPEN.

Now, I had it in back of my head Mystery Mechanic had a set of switches in his basement.  I looked around and found them.  BUT, I quickly discovered they worked, but had the same problem!  We then remembered that his '08 ALSO had the issue, and the part was the bad one.

I was at least able to put the window back up.

I decided to take apart my totally-toasted one to see if it could be fixed.  I thought perhaps some contacts would be cleaned.  In the end, I couldn't fix them and just gave up.

A trip to our favorite junk yard later, and I had a new (used) part in-hand.  This was in September 2020 and so far, they still work fine.  

There may be folks out there who know how to fix the switches, or may want to try it.  Below are some photos to help those people out.  

NOTE:  The switch style changed one last time, I think in 2009 or 2010.

Ford part number:  5L1T-14540-AWB

Exploded view of parts

Little dust/water guards slip right off... notice the copper connectors

View of bottom with connectors

Winter Embarrassment...

In the almost 3 decades I have been driving, I have been driving full size rear wheel drive V8 sedans.  I know how to drive them in winter.  I have been stuck in snow less than a handful of times.

AND SO it is with some embarrassment that I type up this post!

The other day, it was in the upper 40s and sunny here in Massachusetts.  That meant snow was melting BUT still hiding ICE underneath.  I pulled into a dirt lot to take a photo of an unusual locomotive.  It never came (assumed it stopped down the tracks to work) and what ended up happening?  I decided to leave... 

Now, even though Vic 1.0 has been gone for a while, I STILL can't get used to the larger turning radius of Vic 3.0 (due to the wider track).  I misjudged a 3-point turn and the front wheels pushed into a berm of snow just before the side of the road.  I had to stop to make sure no cars were coming.  And that was what did me in.  Normally it would be no big deal, BUT Vic had enough time to sink through the watery snow and onto the ice hiding under it!

It took:

• about a half hour of time
• a bunch of sand
• a cheap emergency shovel
• an old pair of plastic get-me-unstuck mats (one of which disintegrated)
• much embarrassment 

... to get the car free.  I couldn't even rock the thing, as the snow tires simply had nothing to rock against!  Sand did NOTHING.  A slight push would have helped but I was alone and few cars drove by.  

OH, and while I was stuck there... the locomotive stopped RIGHT next to me.  I took a break and nonchalantly took my photos. 

In the end, basically, once I saw that the rear tires were burning through the ice, I knew EVENTUALLY I'd hit dirt and that would help.  FINALLY I was able to get free in reverse (unusual, especially with directional snow tires).  I stood there, looking at the aftermath, thankful the road in front of me is lightly traveled, and hoping the train crew didn't notice I was stuck.

Chalk it up to "experience".  Also chalk it up to "ice is NOT snow"!

At least I got a photo... not the best BUT I got it...